Planet Ubuntu Women

Romana Branden: Links for 2008-05-16 [Digg]

Sat, 17 May 2008 05:00:00 +0000

How did Ubuntu end up so popular?
How did this come to pass? Seriously. I was there… not from the very start but from very close to the beginning. The very first release was Ubuntu 4.10, nicknamed Warty Warthog. I started with the next release, Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog). My first experience with Ubuntu was not the best. But I came back to Ubuntu. Why?
Bush Lied About Giving Up Golf: Video Proof
President Bush said with a straight face this week that he gave up golf in honor of the fallen soldiers in Iraq, claiming that he quit after the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003. In fact, Bush went golfing two months after the bombing the UN headquarters, and Keith Olbermann found the video:

Romana Branden: I can believe anything…

timelady — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:43:25 +0000

…provided it is incredible.

Terry Pratchett writes some of the funniest books ever. The Discworld series is utter genius. One of the things that makes them so brilliant is that they aren’t just incredibly, wittily, ridiculously funny, they are searingly, bitingly observant. I give you an excerpt from Hogfather:

Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?

Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.

Susan: So we can believe the big ones?

Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.

Susan: They’re not the same at all.

Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.

Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what’s the point?

Death: You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become?

Romana Branden: links for 2008-05-17

timelady — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:38:12 +0000

SANS Internet Storm Center; Cooperative Network Security Community - Internet Security - isc

Scripts that allow brute forcing of vulnerable keys (see this as rainbow tables for SSH keys) are in the wild so we would like to remind all of you to regenerate SSH keys ASAP.

(tags: ssh security vulnerability warning keys)
The 9 Most Obnoxious Memes to Ever Escape the Web | Cracked.com

The internet is responsible for many terrible things, which the world tolerates as long as these terrible things stay on the internet. But some internet memes become so popular they spill out & infect the real world in ways that simply cannot be tolerated

(tags: meme internet list funny humour humor cracked obnoxious annoying rickrolled)
Facebook’s Big Facelift

The social networking site’s coming redesign will be marked by a cleaner, more organized look to appeal to its vastly bigger, more diverse user base

(tags: facebook web2.0 socialnetworking)
‘Major’ Flash Player beta released | Reg Developer

The “first major” Flash Player update since Adobe Systems completed its 2005 acquisition of Macromedia is due to be made available today as a beta. With extended Linux support!

(tags: flash macromedia adobe beta flash10)
Yahoo: Pro-Microsoft shareholders control at least 29 percent of Yahoo — does that mean the fight’s over?

pretty close to a tko. sad.

(tags: microsoft yahoo corporate takeover merger)

Nightrose: flying high up there

Lydia — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:36:10 +0000

Since a lot of people asked I am going to blog a little bit about FOSSCamp and what we did so far here in Prague.

First of all: It is awesome. The hotel is great, food tastes good and there are a lot of free software people here who are fun to hang out with, including, but not limited to some of my favorite KDE hackers

Yesterday I took the train to Stuttgart and from there a small plane to Prague. Unfortunately my flight was delayed by over one hour due to bad weather and I was slightly concerned I am going to miss Nicolas who I was supposed to meet at the airport in Prague to share a taxi to the hotel. (My flight was supposed to arrive 30 minutes before his.) So when we finally landed I hurried to get my luggage just to find out that he was waiting there for his luggage and that his flight had been delayed as well. \o/ After checking in at the hotel I went to have a drink at the hotel bar with Jonathan, Jos and Inge.

This morning the actual un-conference started with a short introduction by Jono Bacon and Mark Shuttleworth, followed by deciding on the conference schedule for the day and having photos taken for a wall with pictures of everyone and a short introduction. One thing you were supposed to answer was: “3 things you don’t know about me.” It was quite interesting to read that. For example there is a KDE hacker (whose identity I will not disclose for reasons of confidentiality and his safety) with a certain interest in the Powerpuff Girls

The sessions I attended today were:

KDE: We discussed release schedules of KDE and different distros.
Xesam/Strigi: What is it? How does it work and how can it be integrated into various programs?
2 sessions on KDE/Gnome collaboration: We discussed the why, what and how of sharing of settings, caches, indexes, passwords, bookmarks and so on between the desktops. This was mainly focussed on large appliances where redundancy in these things is often not wanted for reasons like HD space.
Ubuntu Brainstorm: The main points that were discussed here was how to improve Ubuntu Brainstorm by getting Ubuntu and upstream developers involved.
Free Culture: This one was proposed by me and we discussed how different free software applications can work together with people making free culture to the benefit of both since there is huge potential for collaboration. I will write a separate post about that later.

Then the conference program for today was finished and we went into town for food and drinks and some sightseeing. Back at the hotel we sat down for another short talk with Mark on release cycles and some chilling and hacking.

Let’s see what the second conference day’s schedule will bring up

Caroline Ford

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:43:17 +0000

"I’ve thought for a while that sending laptops to developing countries is simply the 21st century equivalent of sending bibles to the colonies." - Guido van Rossum's comment on the One laptop per Child fallout here.

Caroline Ford

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:59:57 +0000

Had an interview on Thursday for a temp job which I fluffed, and have another one on Monday. Got an interview for a perm role on Wednesday. Another agency rang me this afternoon. One of these must come off!

Been playing with Second Life. I don't have the audio working (*glares at pulse audio*) but the rest is okay. Contemplating going back into SL content creation.

Weather back to being too cold, dark and wet, after a period of being Too Damn Hot.

Been adding photos to flickr after someone bought me a paid account!

Still using twitter a lot..

Romana Branden: Collective fear stimulates herd instinct…

timelady — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:05:56 +0000

…and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Romana Branden: Links for 2008-05-15 [Digg]

Fri, 16 May 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Woman indicted in Megan Meier's MySpace bullying case
LA grand jury indicts Missouri woman in MySpace cyber-bullying case.

Romana Branden: links for 2008-05-16

timelady — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:42:02 +0000

Google’s OpenSocial Is Killing Facebook App Buzz - Silicon Alley Insider

Google’s (GOOG) OpenSocial, whose members include MySpace (NWS), has cut into Facebook developer activity:

(tags: opensocial google facebook friendconnect myspace)

Romana Branden: Christian: One who thinks the New Testament is…

timelady — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:58:29 +0000

…a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

Now, I have nothing against reasonable Christians.The non frenzied, not convert everyone, not demand it taught as scientific fact in schools types. They exist, but the loud nutjobs ruin it for the others. I respect your beliefs, UNLESS you start demanding I live my life by them. Like these people, or these, or these.

Idiots seeking to impose their bleiefs on others. Yes, idiots. One believes there is a splinter in your eye, zealots. And your stone throwing is inappropriate, as is your picking the bits of the Bible that suit, ignoring the fun in Leviticus, for example.

By the way, feel free to apply that rule of loathing fundamentalists on any belief system, be it religious or political. Fundamentalists are completely abhorrent absolutists who will impose their will on others, and that is just wrong. Democracy, people.

So in honour of the irrational ones:

Top Ten Signs You’re a Fundamentalist/Extremist/Crazy Christian.
10
- You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by
other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of
yours.

9 - You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when scientists
say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem
with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7
- Your face turns purple when you hear of the “atrocities” attributed
to Allah, but you don’t even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah
slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in “Exodus” and ordered the
elimination of entire ethnic groups in “Joshua” including women,
children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify
humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have
no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then
gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then
ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life
looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of
Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing
dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and
guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe
that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those
who share your beliefs — though excluding those in all rival sects -
will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider
your religion the most “tolerant” and “loving.”

3 - While
modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to
convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking
in “tongues” may be all the evidence you need to “prove” Christianity.

2
- You define 0.01% as a “high success rate” when it comes to answered
prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you
think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1
- You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do
about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call
yourself a Christian.

Yolynne Medina: American Idol have Two Davids and there’s No Goliath

yolynne — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:40:18 +0000

Whew! That is all I can say after watching American Idol 2008 tonight. This is the only season of AI that was able to entice my interest. Not even Jasmine Trias’ AI batch was able to hook me into it. The top 2 contenders are my favorite. What could go wrong with two [...]

Catherine Devlin: cmd2 0.3.0

Catherine (noreply@blogger.com) — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:34:33 +0000

I'm speaking on SQL*Plus alternatives again on Wednesday at GCOUG, and trying to polish up sqlpython a bit in preparation for that. That required polishing cmd2; I've been increasingly embarrassed that cmd2 used homemade code (flagReader) to interpret --options --like --these, instead of using a perfectly good module from the standard library (optparse).

Optparse is not designed for iterative cmd-type apps where you remain at an application prompt after issuing each command - it keeps issuing sys.exit()s to kick you back to the shell. That was my excuse for not using it earlier, but once I decided to fix it, a little subclassing took care of it.

Next I got a little deeper into decorators than I'd ever been, to provide a concise way to specify those options:


@options([make_option('-k', '--ketchup', action="store_true", help="Ketchup on that?"),
         [make_option('-r', '--relish', help="relish (sweet or dill)")])
def do_hotdog(self, arg, opts):
    if opts.relish:
        self.stdout.write('One dog with %s relish\n' % opts.relish)
    if opts.ketchup:
         self.stdout.write('Hope you're not wearing white!\n')

That was pretty fun. Took some experimentation and this article, though, to figure out how to write a decorator that would accept an argument.

I didn't throw away the homemade ("flagReader") code, for backward compatibility; I issue a DeprecationWarning instead. I did throw away the guts and reimplement it as a wrapper around optparse. I managed to do that part on a single 20-minute bus ride, thanks to good doctests on flagReader. I feel so grown-up!

Finally, inspired by Brandon Rhodes' article in the March 2008 Python magazine, I tried supporting buildout deployments this time. I'm not sure I'm getting it quite right yet; expect it to actually work in cmd2 0.3.1.

Romana Branden: Links for 2008-05-14 [Digg]

Thu, 15 May 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Facebook's Big Facelift
This is a short article about the makeover plans for facebook. Quite an interesting read.

Romana Branden: links for 2008-05-15

timelady — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:45:23 +0000

Online Only: 100 Essential Jazz Albums: Online Only: The New Yorker

These hundred titles are meant to provide a broad sampling of jazz classics and wonders across the music’s century-long history. Early New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, hard bop, free jazz, third stream, and fusion are all represent

(tags: jazz music list)
Dead at 98: Heroic Irena Sendler, who helped save 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis | the Daily Mail

A woman who risked her life saving 2,500 Jewish children from the gas chambers died yesterday aged 98.

(tags: hero jew nazi rescue children bravery courage tribute honour)
Windows: Get Vista’s Best Features in XP

Let’s take a look at a few ways you can incorporate Windows Vista’s best features into your current XP PC for free.

(tags: xp vista lifehack functionality improve upgrade)
Can We Return Man to the Moon? - The Space Moon Race - TIME

Gene Cernan and Alan Bean, two Apollo-era astronauts who have bounded on the lunar surface, are thrilled with NASA’s plans to return Americans the moon. Thrilled, but not entirely convinced it will ever happen. I hope they are wrong…we need to go back.

(tags: moon lunar apollo nasa exploration astronaut science)
1,000 Ancient Tombs, Unique Remains Found in Colombia

Builders clearing land for a housing project in Colombia have uncovered an ancient burial site containing nearly a thousand tombs linked to two little-known civilizations

(tags: archeology science history)
Hillary’s Grotesque Insult to African-Americans | Election 2008 | AlterNet

It’s one thing to lack class, but it’s quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee. Absolutely.

(tags: america usa obama clinto president democracy election)
Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

if only people would have the will to implement these….

(tags: gandhi peace)

Belinda Lopez: the best words on the olpc state. . .

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:21:30 +0000

http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi

Amen, Ivan!

and history repeats itself. . .

reminds me of why I left the education sector; the politics overriding the learning, the children. I can't tell you how many "laptop giveaway" projects I've been involved in and even more I've heard of. The same mistakes get made over and over again. "If you give them away, all problems will magically be solved." argh! It's not about the machine, it's the people who use them and genuinely need them but are left with no direction. Start with the learning! I spent a few summers training hundreds of teachers on their new 'free' laptops and yet the trickle to students was negligible. We were literally given a million dollars to spend on hardware but no training development, no curriculum integration and no social issues. I should stop now. . . but only b/c I have a meeting in two hours to discuss, what else, education and free software and new technology in academic settings. Sakai anyone? Connexions?

lol - guess I'm still the idealist who wants to reach those billion children. If Ivan and Walter do start the Open Learning foundation you can bet I'll be sending my resume.

Romana Branden: Links for 2008-05-13 [Digg]

Wed, 14 May 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World
Enlightening and seemingly simple....

Romana Branden: links for 2008-05-14

timelady — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:54:29 +0000

You will obey, BBC tells Dr Who knitter | NEWS.com.au

A CRAFT enthusiast who posted knitting patterns inspired by Doctor Who characters on the internet has had them exterminated by the BBC’s own Daleks in the form of a copyright infringement notice.

(tags: bbc copyright craft dalek knitting doctorwho drwho)
The X-Files: I Want to Believe Trailer Has Arrived! « FirstShowing.net

The very first trailer for The X-Files: I Want to Believe has finally arrived! The buzz for this movie is definitely going to pick up with this trailer. It really doesn’t reveal much, but still the perfect amount to start up discussion….

(tags: 2008 film sci-fi video television x-files cult xfiles movies)
PC World - Aussie technology set to help NASA find life on Mars

The CSIRO and NASA are currently in talks to develop new exploration technologies for use on the Moon and Mars. wooty stuff:)

(tags: csiro science nasa moon mars technology)
NASA - Phoenix set to land on Mars

May 13, 2008: NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls of Martian soil and buried ice. The lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet on Sunday, May 25th.

(tags: mars phoenix lander nasa mission)

Vid Ayer: || raga : yamunakalyani ||

vid — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:47:38 +0000

Raga: Yamunakalyani [65 mecha-kalyani janya] is a modern version of Yaman Kalyan of the Hindustani idiom. SubbaramaDikshitar classifies the raga as bhashanga and desiya.

It is a sampoorna raga and the shuddha madhyama (M2) appears in vakra prayogas in the avarohana such as “g M r” and “g M g r s” but is often rendered in madhyama sruti.

The arohana/avarohana is given by:

A: S R2 G3 P M2 P D2 S

Av: S D2 P M2 P G3 R2 S
[1] BHAVAYAMIGOPALABALAM | khanda chapu | Annamacharya | Telugu |

[2] KrishnaNee BeganeBaro | khanda-chapu | Vyasaraya tirtha | Kannada (There is also a Tamil version which is what I learnt from my g’ma).

In his treatise, “Raganidhi”, Subba Rao notes that there are two versions of this raga and the second does not employ the shuddha madhyama. It skips the nishada and the arohana/avarohana is “s r g p m p d s” – “s d p m s g r s”.

There are many sanchari geethams and jathi swarams (the basics) in Kalyani raga.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NotreBene : Time permitting, I shall add data, so consider the raga-series a perpetual work-in-progress. Thanks for using a track-back to this original blog entry instead of copying!

Vid Ayer: || composer : annamacharya ||

vid — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:45:24 +0000

When I started maintaining a series of notes (and I need to stop using paper) on the ragams learnt, i tried reading up on that particular composer and the composition in an effort to understand them better. Now i realise that this is not a small project and cross-checking books and online resources takes a helluva lotta time. Each composer deserves their own page instead of a scribbled one-liner amongst other notes, and there being just a handful of composers, this may not be a long series !
ANNAMACHARYA :: – He was the first to structure lyrics in the pallavi and charanam mode, of which 14,000 lyrics are available out of his staggering 32,000 compositions! He used the mudra (signature) “Venkateswara” with slight contextual variations but many were “Anonymous” with no signature. In 1922 the Tirupati Devasthanam authorities stumbled upon the copper plates on which the songs had been engraved by Annamacharya’s grandson Chinna Tirumalacharya.
Annamacharya’s lilting poetry also encompassed folk compositions but the most famous ones include “Muddu gaaru yashoda”, “Ksheerabdi kanyakadu” and “Bhavayami Gopala Balam“, which we performed earlier, with its sonorous lines like “Ghati ghatita mekala Kachita mani ghantika…” and “Ksheerabdi” – which has a lilting melody and is best heard when you are lying on a swing …. guaranteed to send your brain into “relax” mode. A king called Saluva Narasimha Raya, had demanded that Annamacharya compose similar erotic poetry glorifying him but the poet declined, saying his poetry and music were dedicated to the Almighty alone, for which he was imprisoned by the King.

Cant blame the King as after listening to “Muddugaru” and “Ksheerabdi” you will never know that both belong to the same – kuranji raga composition. His compositions blend devotion with erotic love and include subtle Vedic, Tantric and scriptural references, whilst the initiated can decipher the mantras and astrology embedded in the compositions.

=== = = = = = = = =

NotreBene : Time permitting, I shall add data, so consider the raga-series a perpetual work-in-progress. Thanks for using a track-back to this original blog entry instead of copying!

Romana Branden: Links for 2008-05-12 [Digg]

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:00:00 +0000

The Woman Who Saved 2,500 Jewish Children From the Nazis
Irena Sendler, a woman who risked her life saving 2,500 Jewish children from the gas chambers died yesterday aged 98. Records show that her team of some 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

Romana Branden: links for 2008-05-13

timelady — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:58:43 +0000

The 25 Year Old BSD Bug

1983. The year of the IBM PC XT, the Apple Lisa, Pioneer 10 leaving the solar system, and Hooters opening up shop in Florida. It’s also the birthyear of a 25 year old BSD bug, squashed only a few days ago.

(tags: bsd bug unix)
Suicide (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

intruiging look at the philosophy of suicide…

(tags: death essay ethics morality philosophy psychology read reading suicide)
Google to launch Friend Connect for the social Web | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Google is expected to join the social network data portability crowd with “Friend Connect”. Friend Connect will be a set of “APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites.”

(tags: google opensocial friendconnect facebook myspace social networking)
APOD: 2008 May 11 - Retrograde Mars

a series of images digitally stacked so that all of the stars images coincide. Here, Mars appears to trace out a loop in the sky.

(tags: astronomy mars images sky solarsystem space)
mental_floss Blog » How Do Painkillers Find & Kill Pain?

Very appropriate for me…

(tags: chemistry health medical medicine read reference science pain aspirin drugs codeine)

Romana Branden: links for 2008-05-12

timelady — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:45:56 +0000

Five science fiction movies that get the science right - opinion - 09 May 2008 - New Scientist

So, to give credit where it’s due, we have picked out five more sci-fi films that go against the grain, and contain some accurate, plausible science. They may not be completely realistic, but they get it right when it matters most.

(tags: scifi movies science accurate cool list)
NASA - Planets by the Dozen

This fall, astronomers will start a massive search for new planets by observing about 11,000 nearby stars over 6 years. This number dwarfs the roughly 3,000 stars that astronomers have searched to date for the presence of planets.

(tags: cool astronomy science planet nasa)
Space and Technology - Data recovered from Columbia disaster

Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods, fires & dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive from space shuttle Columbia

(tags: data columbia recovery datarecovery amazing technology nasa spaceshuttle space shuttle)

Isabelle Duchatelle: bapoumba

bapoumba — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:02:21 +0000

Completely useless, and yet essential. Now you know :evil:

Mackenzie Morgan: Kernel Panic: CPU Too Old

Mackenzie (noreply@blogger.com) — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:20:10 +0000

Ever see that message? I got it in February when I put Ubuntu 7.10 Server Edition on my roommate's laptop. Jdong pointed me at a bug explaining the problem. I don't believe I ever mentioned it here, but I was just on the phone with a friend, and he said he had this weird problem where it said the CPU was wrong instead of booting. "CPU too old, you mean?" "Yeah, that's it" "Server Edition?" "

Isabelle Duchatelle: bapoumba

bapoumba — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:52:52 +0000

K.Mandla (here and there) has been reviewing and collecting tutorials from the ubuntuforums every week. This work is really impressive (both K.Mandla’s and the UF member’s) and is one of the many useful elements a Ubuntu newcomer may find useful.
Please visit the Tutorial of the Week thread, and feel free to suggest UF Tutorials in this thread. Thanks!